The tradition of throwing lollies and squirting water at the crowd has been banished from Christmas parades under health and safety rules enforced by Auckland Council.

Oh Good God. Of course there is some small risk of harm, but let’s use common sense. Has any harm ever actually occured, or is likely to?

There is a big difference between mitigating risk and trying to eliminate it.

Santa Parade rules* No throwing lollies or gifts to children. Handing them to children is okay.* No wetting people, with pistols, bombs and cannon.* Drive floats at walking pace only.* No passengers under 5 years old.* No gymnasts doing cartwheels among animal droppings.

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This entry was posted on Thursday, September 13th, 2012 at 1:00 pm and is filed under Fun Things, New Zealand.
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42 Responses to “Even the Santa parade is hit by the safety police”

Seems very specific. Handstands OK? Does that mean there is an inspector that will rope of legitimate cartwheel areas, with those cartwheel areas guaranteed to be free of animal droppings. Or does each gymnast make their own decision on whether or not there are animal droppings (and isn’t that something they’d obviously do for themselves anyway, irrespective of any rules that are created?)

This is the work of incompetent people.
The H+S act in no way stipulates this sort of lunacy. It’s just mindless butt covering by those who are employed to advise on H+S and yet have no idea what they are doing.

What’s so great about the Running of the Bulls in Pamploma is not just the sight of idiots getting gored but the fact that the council recognises it’s none of its damn business to prevent people from freely participating in such an obviously dangerous event.

“Drive floats at walking pace only.” They haven’t had motorized floats for many years. They did not meet NZTA requirements of being able to be driven at motorway speeds. The floats are now on trailers and towed by cars and Utes. The floats are escorted to and from the storage warehouse by Police. If the Police escort travels to fast, the floats can be damaged as happened many years ago.

“No passengers under 5 years old.” The younger participants are too small to keep up with the pace or distance of the parade. Only the older children are allowed to walk the parade.

It sound a bit like the no lolly scramble rule incase some one misses out. Just more PC Bullshit.

I actually had a conversation today with the guy responsible for this.

He said that “Concil’s Health and safety advisors” had told him that the lolly scramble was dangerous because kids could run out after lollies and be run over by a float. I asked him what the stats were for children run over – or hurt in any way – in Santa parades in New Zealand’s history. He said he didn’t know; he had never asked. Wouldnt that be the FIRST thing you would ask when some twerp told you “we can’t have lolly scrambles; children might be hurt” ?

He said he was “going back to his advisors” on the “no water pistols” edict. What happened to actually making a DECISION to reject bullshit advice FFS, and telling said advisors to go and do something more useful? At that point in our discussion Mr Burt had to go, as he had an urgent meeting…

I work in health and safety and regard this as an f*cking embarrassment.

Real Health and Safety people work on real hazards to try to stop people getting injured or unwell and don’t waste time with this rubbish
In my opinion the issue here is not H+S but government (both local and central) who employ morons and then listen to them.

In most serious organisations:
1. H+S would never make such a stupid idea
2. Managers would ignore any H+S advisors who did say something so stupid

I think this is very sensible, manys the time I’ve been attending a Santa parade and a child beside me has had an eye taken out by a “hard jube” biffed by an overzealous Santa elf, think of the kids you heartless bastards.

The idea that Mr Burt could simply say “piss off, your advice is crap” and make a decision seemed to be a bit foreign to him…

LOL… This is a COUNCIL… there are no decisions made here… all we do is “facilitate” a process of collecting bits of paper with other people’s signatures on the bottom of them, to cover off all the relevant tick boxes and ensure that responsibility rests with anyone but us. But then I get the feeling you knew that…?

There was once a time (LOL, I’m 32, it wasn’t that long ago!) when if the council engineers/checkers wrote me a letter, it would be to ask why I’d used a strange wind pressure coefficient or to tell me that they thought my concrete wall strength calculation on page 34 had a mistake in it, please revise. In other words it was a valuable process of additional checking to make sure my calculations were correct and that the building really was going to stand up.

These days, the questions are more of the form “Please explain how your proposed bracket detail complies with clause 47 of section B2 of the building code?” or “Please provide a signed producer statement covering the balustrades?” They seem to be more interested in ensuring the Council is not liable for any error or omission, than in helping to ensure the buildings are 100% right.

Pauleastbay (2,636) Says:
September 13th, 2012 at 7:05 pm
I think this is very sensible, manys the time I’ve been attending a Santa parade and a child beside me has had an eye taken out by a “hard jube” biffed by an overzealous Santa elf, think of the kids you heartless bastards

Did you have the required skills to attend these dangerous undertakings .. ??..
NO !!..

Shame on you !!.. Were you prosecuted for not being able to assist those in pain from the atrocities ??

NO !!.. Shame on the organizers..

I could go on.. but I am speechless that a man such as you would be so callous as to take young ones to such a Parade.

I work in health and safety and regard this as an f*cking embarrassment.

Real Health and Safety people work on real hazards to try to stop people getting injured or unwell and don’t waste time with this rubbish
In my opinion the issue here is not H+S but government (both local and central) who employ morons and then listen to them.

In most serious organisations:
1. H+S would never make such a stupid idea
2. Managers would ignore any H+S advisors who did say something so stupid

In short don’t blame H+S – blame bureaucrats

Honestly Tim, that is a load of shite, or you’re certainly not working with a unionised workforce. Have you actually ever worked on a mega-project?

The H&S reasons I have seen used to stop work and create work/positions for H&S personnel continue to boggle my mind, and I’ve been in oil and gas for >20 years.

One of the more stupid recent decisions I saw made by you wallies in H&S, was the banning of elastic sided boots; because they supposedly cause more ankle injuries. So, everyone was made to wear lace-ups, then over a 20 month period, ankle injuries were 30% higher than they were previous to the wonderful edict from H&S. The reason; everyones ankles got weaker, from wearing the lace-ups!

On a big pipeline we’re currently laying in OZ, we’ve now got people walking in teams across an area “spotting” for snakes, before workers are allowed into a development area – all for $125 an hour. Whoever came up with this scam is onto a winner, it’s not like the snakes aren’t going to come back…. Good work if you can get it!

I’ve never felt a necessity to do cartwheels amongst my animals droppings. Usually just a quiet cigarette and a last few drinks from a nice bottle of wine will do it for it me and ewe. Honestly folks they don’t expect you to do calesthenics!

Honestly Tim, that is a load of shite, or you’re certainly not working with a unionised workforce. Have you actually ever worked on a mega-project?

To answer your question mister nui – no I work in a factory and most of my experience is in medium to large companies not mega projects.
I do not on mega projects – I prefer my current job – one of the reasons why is that bureaucracy in large projects gets out of control.
I am a hazardous substances specialist – i.e. I would be more interested in making sure your oil and gas project didn’t blow up or poison anyone than I would be in the other issues you mention.

I was not saying that dumbass decisions do not get made by idiots who then claim H+S justifications.
What I am saying is that people who really try to improve H+S get pissed off by these idiots even more than you. We work on real issues and meantime we are getting a bad reputation because of these idiots.

I am willing to bet money that on your pipeline project there is someone doing real H+S work. Not having working on a gas pipeline I would have to take a guess what it is, probably that it would be things like ensuring there is no chance of a spark near the flammable gas, ensuring the line is properly earthed to avoid static electricity build-up etc.
I am willing to bet the poor bastards doing this work are even more pissed off than you about stupid regulations because they are just making the real job tougher.